Park City restaurant robbery probe continues

The Park City Police Department released an image from a security camera at Flanagan s on Main showing the suspect in a robbery on Easter morning. Flanagan s on Main has posted a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the suspect s arrest and conviction. Courtesy of Park City Police Department

A man brandishing a pistol robbed a Main Street restaurant Sunday, the Park City Police Department said, prompting a hunt for the perpetrator in Old Town and elsewhere during what otherwise appeared to be a pleasant Easter morning along Main Street.

Phil Kirk, a police captain, said the department received the robbery report at 10: 30 a.m. Flanagan’s on Main was readying to open for business when an employee found the man on the basement level wearing a half of a ski mask, Kirk said. The employee confronted the man. The suspect then pulled out a pistol, Kirk said. The man left out a back door onto Swede Alley, he said. There were no customers inside at the time, Kirk said.

Kirk said the suspect is white, 5 foot, 8 inches tall and has a stocky build. He was wearing a dark green Carhartt jacket, a hooded sweat shirt, black pants and black shoes.

The Police Department said he stole an unknown number of bottles of expensive wine.

A co-owner of Flanagan’s on Main, John Kenworthy, said the employee who found the man is a bartender. The bartender surprised the man and asked who he was, Kenworthy said, describing that the man responded by saying he was retrieving wine bottles to stock the bar. The employee told him he was the bartender and continued to confront the man, Kenworthy said.

Kenworthy said the suspect turned around and pointed a gun at the employee. The suspect forced the bartender at gunpoint into a refrigerated room where kegs are stored and took the man’s keys, he said. Kenworthy said there were up to eight other employees inside the building at the time, but they were upstairs and did not realize what was happening in the basement.

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"I just think this kind of crime is not Park City. This is not the Park City I love," he said, adding, "It was Easter Sunday . . . it was beautiful."

Kenworthy said it seemed the suspect’s primary target was cash and not the bottles of wine that were taken.

Flanagan’s on Main posted a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the suspect’s arrest and conviction.

Kenworthy said he is pleased with the performance of the Police Department, saying the response and investigation was strong. The department worked "tirelessly" on the case, he said.

"The police are going to apprehend this guy," he said.

People with information about the case may contact the Police Department at 615-5500 or the department’s tip line, 615-5847.

It was a rare holdup in Park City, a place where there is little crime involving firearms notwithstanding a recent series of cases that has included a shooting death and complaints to the police about people carrying guns.

Robberies are also rare in Park City. The Police Department indicated in its annual crime report there were no robberies in 2014, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The report says robbery reports ranged from the zero reported in 2014 to seven logged in 2012. The numbers represent the initial reports to the police and investigators may have later determined a case at first generated as a robbery actually was not one.